Using Single-Row Functions to

Customize Output

Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Objectives

After completing this lesson, you should be able to do the

following:
• Describe various types of functions available in SQL
• Use character, number, and date functions in SELECT
statements

3-2 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Lesson Agenda

• Single-row SQL functions

• Character functions
• Number functions
• Working with dates
• Date functions

3-3 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Difference Between Function and Procedure

Function Procedure
• Function return single • Procedure can return
value many values
• Or may not return at all

3-4 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 SQL Functions

Input Output

Function

arg 1 Function performs

action
arg 2
Result
value

arg n

3-5 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 SQL Functions

• Functions are a very powerful feature of SQL. They can be

used to do the following:
– Perform calculations on data
– Modify individual data items
– Manipulate output for groups of rows
– Format dates and numbers for display
– Convert column data types
• SQL functions sometimes take arguments and always return
a value.

3-6 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Two Types of SQL Functions

Functions

Single-row Multiple-row
functions functions

Return one result Return one result

per row per set of rows

3-7 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Single-Row Functions

Single-row functions:
• Manipulate data items
• Accept arguments and return one value
• Act on each row that is returned
• Return one result per row
• May modify the data type
• Can be nested
• Accept arguments that can be a column or an expression

function_name [(arg1, arg2,...)]

3-8 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Single-Row Functions

Character

Single-row
General Number
functions

Conversion Date

3-9 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Lesson Agenda

• Single-row SQL functions

• Character functions
• Number functions
• Working with dates
• Date functions

3 - 10 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Character Functions

Character
functions

Case-conversion Character-manipulation
functions functions

LOWER CONCAT
UPPER SUBSTR
INITCAP LENGTH
INSTR
LPAD | RPAD
TRIM
REPLACE

3 - 11 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Case-Conversion Functions

These functions convert the case for character strings:

Function Result
LOWER('SQL Course') sql course
UPPER('SQL Course') SQL COURSE
INITCAP('SQL Course') Sql Course

3 - 13 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Using Case-Conversion Functions

Display the employee number, name, and department number

for employee Higgins:
SELECT employee_id, last_name, department_id
FROM employees
WHERE last_name = 'higgins';

SELECT employee_id, last_name, department_id

FROM employees
WHERE LOWER(last_name) = 'higgins';

3 - 14 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 • CONCAT, SUBSTR, LENGTH, INSTR, LPAD, RPAD, and TRIM
are the character-manipulation functions that are covered in
this lesson.
• CONCAT: Joins values together (You are limited to using two
parameters with CONCAT.)
• SUBSTR: Extracts a string of determined length
• LENGTH: Shows the length of a string as a numeric value
• INSTR: Finds the numeric position of a named character
• LPAD: Returns an expression left-padded to the length of n
characters with a character expression
• RPAD: Returns an expression right-padded to the length of n
characters with a character expression
• TRIM: Trims leading or trailing characters (or both) from a
character string (If trim_character or trim_source is a
character literal, you must enclose it within single quotation
marks.)

3 - 15 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Character-Manipulation Functions

These functions manipulate character strings:

Function Result
CONCAT('Hello', 'World') HelloWorld
SUBSTR('HelloWorld',1,5) Hello
LENGTH('HelloWorld') 10
INSTR('HelloWorld', 'W') 6
LPAD(salary,10,'*') *****24000
RPAD(salary, 10, '*') 24000*****
REPLACE BLACK and BLUE
('JACK and JUE','J','BL')
TRIM('H' FROM 'HelloWorld') elloWorld

3 - 16 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Using the Character-Manipulation Functions

1
SELECT employee_id, CONCAT(first_name, last_name) NAME,
job_id, LENGTH (last_name), 2
INSTR(last_name, 'a') "Contains 'a'?"
FROM employees 3
WHERE SUBSTR(job_id, 4) = 'REP';

1 2 3

3 - 17 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Lesson Agenda

• Single-row SQL functions

• Character functions
• Number functions
• Working with dates
• Date Functions

3 - 18 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Number Functions

• ROUND: Rounds value to a specified decimal

• TRUNC: Truncates value to a specified decimal
• MOD: Returns remainder of division

Function Result
ROUND(45.926, 2) 45.93
TRUNC(45.926, 2) 45.92
MOD(1600, 300) 100

3 - 19 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Using the ROUND Function

1 2
SELECT ROUND(45.923,2), ROUND(45.923,0),
ROUND(45.923,-1) 3
FROM DUAL;

1 2 3
DUAL is a dummy table that you can use to view results
from functions and calculations.

3 - 20 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Using the TRUNC Function

1 2
SELECT TRUNC(45.923,2), TRUNC(45.923),
TRUNC(45.923,-1) 3
FROM DUAL;

1 2 3

3 - 21 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Using the MOD Function

For all employees with the job title of Sales Representative,

calculate the remainder of the salary after it is divided by 5,000.

SELECT last_name, salary, MOD(salary, 5000)

FROM employees
WHERE job_id = 'SA_REP';

3 - 22 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Lesson Agenda

• Single-row SQL functions

• Character functions
• Number functions
• Working with dates
• Date functions

3 - 23 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Working with Dates

• The Oracle database stores dates in an internal numeric

format: century, year, month, day, hours, minutes, and
seconds.
• The default date display format is DD-MON-RR.
– Enables you to store 21st-century dates in the 20th century
by specifying only the last two digits of the year
– Enables you to store 20th-century dates in the
21st century in the same way

SELECT last_name, hire_date

FROM employees
WHERE hire_date < '01-FEB-88';

3 - 24 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 RR Date Format

Current Year
Current Year Specified Date RR Format YY Format
1995 27-OCT-95 1995 1995
1995 27-OCT-17 2017 1917
2001 27-OCT-17 2017 2017
2001 27-OCT-95 1995 2095

If the specified two-digit year is:

0–49 50–99
If two digits The return date is in The return date is in
of the 0–49 the current century the century before
current the current one
year are: The return date is in The return date is in
50–99 the century after the current century
the current one

3 - 25 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Using the SYSDATE Function

SYSDATE is a function that returns:

• Date
• Time

SELECT sysdate
FROM dual;

3 - 27 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Arithmetic with Dates

• Add or subtract a number to or from a date for a resultant

date value.
• Subtract two dates to find the number of days between those
dates.
• Add hours to a date by dividing the number of hours by 24.

3 - 28 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Using Arithmetic Operators
with Dates

SELECT last_name, (SYSDATE-hire_date)/7 AS WEEKS

FROM employees
WHERE department_id = 90;

3 - 29 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Lesson Agenda

• Single-row SQL functions

• Character functions
• Number functions
• Working with dates
• Date functions

3 - 30 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Date-Manipulation Functions

Function Result
MONTHS_BETWEEN Number of months between two dates
ADD_MONTHS Add calendar months to date
NEXT_DAY Next day of the date specified
LAST_DAY Last day of the month

ROUND Round date

TRUNC Truncate date

3 - 31 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Using Date Functions

Function Result
MONTHS_BETWEEN 19.6774194
('01-SEP-95','11-JAN-94')
ADD_MONTHS (‘31-JAN-96',1) ‘29-FEB-96'
NEXT_DAY ('01-SEP-95','FRIDAY') '08-SEP-95'
LAST_DAY ('01-FEB-95') '28-FEB-95'

3 - 32 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Using ROUND and TRUNC Functions with Dates

Assume SYSDATE = '25-JUL-03':

Function Result
ROUND(SYSDATE,'MONTH') 01-AUG-03
ROUND(SYSDATE ,'YEAR') 01-JAN-04
TRUNC(SYSDATE ,'MONTH') 01-JUL-03
TRUNC(SYSDATE ,'YEAR') 01-JAN-03

3 - 33 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Summary

In this lesson, you should have learned how to:

• Perform calculations on data using functions
• Modify individual data items using functions

3 - 34 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.

 Practice 3: Overview

This practice covers the following topics:

• Writing a query that displays the current date
• Creating queries that require the use of numeric, character,
and date functions
• Performing calculations of years and months of service for
an employee

3 - 35 Copyright © 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.